Some of the commanders were Spartans, yes; and it does seem likely that the mercenaries segregated themselves at least somewhat by city of origin, so the Spartan commanders probably had Spartan troops. But the tactics described are standard Hellenic ones; there is nothing about them that is special to Sparta, as far as I can see.
I’m neither istoriean nor expert on acient warfare. My quote was intended to substantiate the claim
Our kind might not be able to cooperate, but the Spartans certainly could. The Spartans were masters of hoplite phalanx warfare where often every individual would have been better off running away but collectively everyone was better off if none ran away than if all did.
My given quote indeed doesn’t distinguish between Spartans and Athens… but that isn’t needed as it appears that all hellenes were able to much better cooperate than their enemies. And from my reading of Anabasis this is substantiated. And my given quote is no bad one at that.
...according to Xenophon, at any rate. I don’t see what that has to do with the alleged Spartan quote.
The hellenes mentioned in the quote were likely spartans.
Some of the commanders were Spartans, yes; and it does seem likely that the mercenaries segregated themselves at least somewhat by city of origin, so the Spartan commanders probably had Spartan troops. But the tactics described are standard Hellenic ones; there is nothing about them that is special to Sparta, as far as I can see.
I’m neither istoriean nor expert on acient warfare. My quote was intended to substantiate the claim
My given quote indeed doesn’t distinguish between Spartans and Athens… but that isn’t needed as it appears that all hellenes were able to much better cooperate than their enemies. And from my reading of Anabasis this is substantiated. And my given quote is no bad one at that.
The reason it’s relevant is that some of us consider the Athenians to be “our kind”, or at least the closest thing at the time.